Wanderess
by DawningAurora
Summary: She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city. On kunoichi, and grace under fire.


"She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city"  
― Roman Payne, _The Wanderess_

* * *

_**She is a girl.**_

* * *

She stands up with her hands dirty, and torn and bleeding.

She, with the last of her strength, stands up.

She fears it might be for the last time but dismisses it to be of no consequence.

She walks slowly to the patch of bushes she had cleared.

There are flowers there, bright chrysanthemums as her mother had laughingly pointed out a mere two days ago. Right before the attack.

She bends down, ignoring the wave of dizziness and gathers them in an enormous clump. It is messy and she regrets- faintly- ignoring her mother's insistence towards learning Ikebana.

She lays each of them- one for each of the graves she's dug- with a fading strength.

She finishes at the final one. There is a convenient tree nearby. She slumps bonelessly, with a heavy ache in her heart for her massacred caravan.

She is fading. She can feel in the trembling of her hands. She can feel in the darkness encroaching the edge of her vision.

For an instant, her vision is filled with a vision of warm honey brown eyes and blonde hair. Her pain begins to dull thereafter.

When wakes up again, it is to the white hospital walls of a village named Konoha.

There is a woman there, with a clipboard in her hand and a soothing voice, asking her name.

She gathers up the festering floods of pain and welds them into her new life.

She looks up at the woman with old, old eyes and answers her.

_Tenten._

* * *

_**She is a kunoichi**_

* * *

It is a B rank mission gone south. It's been reclassified as an S rank.

She is in the midst of a battle field. The men outnumber her four to one.

Her mind calculates on a curiously detached note that there only two kunai and four senbons left on her person.

Her teammates have scattered to the four directions to look for more clues. They would probably realize she was missing as soon as they regrouped. Which was in two days.

For all intents and purposes, she has no back up and she is exhausted, almost drained of chakra _and_ hopelessly outnumbered.

She smirks then- reckless and with abandon.

she decided she was going to die the same way she lived her life- with style.

She was Yamanaka Ino after all, and she'd be damned if she didn't go out like a Yamanaka.

* * *

_**She is a woman**_.

* * *

He threw his head back and laughed again, loud and brash and so very beautiful. It was sweet, honest and so very joyful. It made heads turn towards him with an indulgent smile and brushed away reproach.

It left a deep bittersweet ache in her heart.

He looked at her, smiling and raising his glass in a toast. _Thank you for making this a success_

She raised her own and smiled as only a kunoichi can- so dazzlingly that they never notice the way it never reaches her eyes.

She smiles and laughs and refuses to break down and bawl her eyes out like a child.

She is his best friend after all. She supposes, a little heartbrokenly, that that is all that she was meant to be - the punchline to his jokes, the training partner, the one who empties the water jug over his sleeping head.

She is Haruno Sakura, not his purple haired intended- who laughs and claims his arm like it's the most natural thing in the world.

She supposes, for them, it is.

So she smiles her dazzling smile and jokes about how she has officially renounced her water-pouring rights to the woman in his arms.

* * *

**She is the Heiress**

* * *

_Submit,_ they whispered to her,_ you are the heiress. You must marry a man who will bring great honor to our home._

_Never raise your voice to him._

_Keep your fingers soft and your voice sweet._

_Lower your eyes and submit._

The chants grew louder in her head. She yielded meekly, until she met him.

He was forged from the blood of the setting sun, a quicksilver inferno.

Brilliantly fragile grins, poetic in their illiteracy flash through her blood, fanning flames of strength and something foreign. It shot through her blood, tactile and beckoning- Desire.

He made her want. To be worthy of being his friend. To being worthy of standing beside him.

But most of all, he made her feel like the feather of a phoenix- cherished, valued and coveted fiercely.

She as Hyuga Hinata, but only until he held her like she was his phoenix feather. Then she became Hinata. Just his Hinata.

* * *

I know it's been a while, Real Life tends to get in the way everytime I decide to write a piece.I am not yet retired from the realm of fic writing. I set out to do character sketches but ended up with this. I hope you like it anyway.… :)

All the shadow readers, don't be shy, drop me a review.. :)


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